


Serial Killers Don't Wear Plaid

by itallstartedwithdefenestration



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M, Prison AU, serial killer au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-21 17:51:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itallstartedwithdefenestration/pseuds/itallstartedwithdefenestration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Sam Winchester, Lucifer has always been unavoidable, like a hurricane.</p>
<p>The murders, they were a bonus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Serial killer AU that has been a long time in coming. The prison bit was inspired by Orange is the New Black.
> 
> I might be adding in characters and/or relationships as the story progresses.

**_April 2013_ **

The scrubs are orange. 

Sam figures that some deity must have it out for him, because they’re _orange_ —fluorescent and short-sleeved and ugly. He takes the pair that the guard is holding out to him and tries to twist his mouth into something resembling a smile. 

“Do these come in khaki?” he asks. Completely serious, but the guard laughs anyway, a snort and an upward tug of his lips, like Sam’s just told a hilarious joke.

“What are you, some kinda diva,” the guard says, and almost throws Sam his towel and a pair of soft shoes. “This is a prison, son, not some fashion show. You wear what we give you.”

“Yeah,” Sam mutters, staring down at the threadbare towel. There’s a stain in one corner, brown and a little crusty. He doesn’t want to know. “I got that. Sorry.”

The guard grunts. Points at Sam with one fat finger and tells him to strip.

“What, here?” Sam asks, raising his eyebrows. “I thought that was just a movie thing—”

“Well, it’s not,” the guard says, starting to sound a little annoyed. “Strip, Winchester. Don’t make me do it for you.”

Sam sets his new clothes down and carefully pulls off the outfit he and Jess had picked out that morning—olive-green jacket, plaid shirt, and jeans. When he’s down to his underwear he looks up at the guard and says, “Boxers too, or are you okay with not seeing my dick for the rest of the day?”

The guard makes a surprised sound at the back of his throat and rolls his eyes, cheeks flushing. “Just put on the damn scrubs, Winchester.”

Once Sam is fully dressed, he’s led into a slightly larger room where his picture is taken—no smile, Dean warned him not to smile or they’d probably kill him—and then, after pinning the identity badge to the front of his shirt, he is taken to his cell. There’s one other guy already in there; short, brunet, round-faced. He looks friendly enough, but Sam’s a high-security inmate in a federal prison. He’s pretty sure his cellmate probably murdered someone. At the very least.

“Gallagher, this is Winchester,” the guard grunts. “Play nice.” 

Then he slams the cell door behind him. Sam listens to his high-polished shoes clicking away on the concrete floor outside.

“Jesus,” he says, “what a dick.”

His cellmate looks up from the book he’s reading—Sam can’t really see the title but he’s pretty sure it’s _Of Mice and Men._ “Who, Zachariah? Yeah, he’s a real jerk off. He’s the only one though. Everyone else here is okay, except maybe Virgil, he’s kind of—anyway. Hi. I’m Andy.” He sits up on his bunk, holds out his hand. Sam takes it cautiously; Andy seems kind of keyed-up, eyes darting from one side of the room to the other. His book is shaking minutely where it rests in his free hand. 

“Sam,” Sam introduces himself, when it becomes clear that Andy isn’t going to let go of his hand until he says something.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Andy says. He sounds oddly sincere about it for someone who’s met Sam in prison, and Sam thinks it might be okay, with Andy as his cellmate.

Then his eyes fall on Sam’s left hand. “You married?” he asks.

Sam glances down at his ring finger. The band glints gold in the weak fluorescent lights overhead. “Engaged,” he says, and smiles behind his fringe of hair. Thinks of Jess back at home, waiting for him, with her blonde curls and her sweet smile. The last time they saw each other, she promised to come to the soonest visitation day. She was wearing Daisy Dukes and a Smurfs shirt and Sam couldn’t stop staring at her the whole time he was being led down the hall.

Andy’s smiling at Sam now, but it’s a sad smile. Like he knows something Sam doesn’t. “You better make sure it stays that way,” he says. 

Sam doesn’t know what Andy means by that, but before he can ask the intercom buzzes and a voice calls, “Winchester, to Conteur’s office. Now.”

“Who’s Conteur?” Sam asks, frowning at his shoes as he sets his towel down on his bunk. But Andy’s expression is pinched, and he’s staring down at _Of Mice and Men_ again, one hand in his tousled hair.

“You better just go,” he says. “Conteur’s fucking crazy when he gets mad.”

*

**_January 2013_ **

“Prison?” 

Jess’ voice is incredulous, even more so than the expression on her face as she leans over the back of the sofa to stare at Sam’s letter. It’s stamped with the State of California’s official seal, and though it’s a form letter there’s no mistaking the annoyance in Naomi’s scrawling black signature at the bottom. Signing Sam off to five years in prison, as an accomplice to murder. She’d told him he was lucky she’s a good liar. That if they knew what he’d really done, he’d be in for life. 

Naomi hadn’t said Sam was an idiot for wanting to turn himself in, but then she hadn’t needed to. 

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Five years, and then I’m out.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jess says. “That’s a long time, Sam.” She frowns, turning the paper over like she’s looking for some sort of loophole. “What’d you do, rob a bank?” Her voice is half-joking as she moves around the sofa to stand in front of him, run her fingers through his hair. “Steal some liquor?”

Sam laughs too, and lightly pushes her away so he can stand up and stretch. “Not exactly,” he says, and moves into the kitchen. Jess follows him, her tiny arms folded across her chest. She looks like she wants to press, but she doesn’t, and Sam loves her for it. Loves her even more when she walks up behind him and wraps her arms around his waist.

“Are we still gonna get married when you come out?” she asks. “After you’ve served your mysterious time for whatever you did that warrants five years?” There’s a thread of something almost like anger in the back of her voice when she says that, but Sam ignores it in favor of grabbing a bottle of wine out of the refrigerator and the corkscrew from the drawer to open it. He can’t tell her—doesn’t want to, doesn’t need to see the look on her face when she finds out what he really is. Was. Will always be, no matter how far he runs. If she starts pressing, he’ll lie, he’s good at that, but Jess is Sam’s first constant from After, and he can’t lose her. Not now. Not like this.

“We’re gonna get married if we have to do it on the moon,” Sam reassures her, and she presses a kiss between his shoulder blades. He can feel her smile against the soft cotton of his shirt.

“But seriously, Sam,” she says, as he loosens the bottle top and pours wine into two glasses, “what. Why are you going to prison? Did you and Dean used to be arsonists or something?”

It’s close enough to the truth that Sam goes tense, and Jess releases him then, moving around to stare at him. “You didn’t, really,” she says.

“No, no. God.” Sam makes a frustrated sound, pushes his hand through his hair. Takes a sip of wine and offers the other glass to Jess, who takes it with trembling fingers. “It was—it was a long time ago, Jess. Before we met. I got into some shit I shouldn’t have, and now. It’s caught up to me. I have to go.”

Jess locks her eyes onto his, and for a while neither of them says anything. “It wasn’t drugs, was it?” she asks finally, after a long sip of wine, and Sam feels his body relax. Forces a small smile on his face, leans in, and kisses her. 

“It wasn’t anything like that, no. It’s all over and done with now, Jess. It’s just something I have to take care of for my own benefit.” 

He doesn’t mention the letter he got in the mail three weeks ago; the one that said their apartment is being watched. That if Sam doesn’t go to jail and do the same time, pay the same consequences as everyone else, he and his pretty little girlfriend are going to find themselves engulfed in flames faster than he can blink. He’s not entirely sure who the letter is from, but he has a hunch, and he wouldn’t mess with her, or her inside sources. 

Jess is quiet for a little while longer, studying Sam carefully. Then, slowly, she nods, and kisses him back. She tastes bittersweet, lips a little sticky from the wine. 

“The uniforms are going to be hideous,” she says, with one hand on Sam’s hip. “Orange, probably. Like in the movies.”

“They won’t be orange,” Sam says, and laughs a little. “Prisons all use khaki these days, Jess. I’m not gonna look like a freak in there, I promise.”

*

**_April 2013_ **

Sam pulls on the edges of his unfortunately bright shirt, trying to wipe all the sweat off his palms before knocking on Conteur’s office door. There’s a pause, and then a voice from within calls, “Enter!” like Sam’s in some B-list prison movie. Still, he pushes the door open, and is startled by the appearance of the man behind the desk. Conteur is overweight—Sam wouldn’t say _fat,_ but he’s not skinny—and has about three days’ worth of stubble growing on his jaw. There’s a hard, squinty look about his eyes. He reminds Sam in some ways of Naomi, although Conteur looks almost friendly, and Naomi never looks like she’s doing anything but plotting murder.

“Sam… Winchester, yes?” he says, and then gestures at the seat opposite his. “Come in, sit down! I’d offer you a drink but I’m afraid my coffee maker’s broken this morning.” He laughs a little as Sam sits, like he’s made a joke, and Sam smiles awkwardly back.

“Mr. Conteur—”

“Please. Call me Metatron.” 

“Uh.” Sam frowns, eyebrows pulling together; if there’s one thing he’s learned over the past few hours, it’s that prison officials hate being referred to by their first names. “All right, then, Metatron, I—”

“I understand you’re in here because of an incident that occurred two years ago, yes?” Metatron’s interrupting again, and Sam feels a brief flash of irritation in his chest before he’s able to tamper it down. 

“Yes, sir,” he says. Wonders how much of the truth Metatron knows.

The man flips through a few papers in what Sam figures is his own file, then pulls one out with a tight, sideways smile on his face. “You were involved with Ruby Cortese and Meg Masters, correct?”

Sam swallows. “Yeah, but not extensively, I mean, the drugs weren’t—”

Metatron holds Sam’s file up. “I know,” he says, and now the smile looks a little easier. “I just have to ask one other question, Sam, and then you’re free to return to your cell.”

“Okay,” Sam says, shifting in his chair and wondering what the hell the point of all this was to begin with.

Metatron taps his finger on the edge of the paper he’s holding. “How involved was your relationship to Lucifer Morningstar?”

Sam feels something topple and fall over in his chest. “I,” he starts, and then finds he can’t say anything else. His throat has gone dry, and there’s a ringing in his ears.

“Mr. Winchester,” Metatron says. Coaxing and almost gentle.

Sam grips the soft edge of his shirt, twisting his fingers around the button. “Lucifer and I—we were—friends,” he says, hesitant and uncertain. He doesn’t know how much else Metatron knows, but he doesn’t want to run the risk of screwing everything up by admitting to anything massive. 

“Friends,” Metatron repeats, and Sam isn’t sure if it’s the blood rushing through his ears or not that makes him hear skepticism in the man’s tone. Still, he nods, and sits up a little straighter, fully aware of how badly he’s started to shake.

“Can I go now?” 

Metatron sighs softly. “I suppose, yes,” he murmurs. “But I should tell you, Mr. Winchester, for your own good. There is one thing you need to know.”

“What,” Sam asks, voice flat.

“Lucifer is here.”

Sam blacks out.


	2. Chapter 2

**_June 2007_ **

The first time Sam sees Lucifer, he knows he’s going to be wrecked for anyone else. Probably for eternity. He’s standing five feet and three drinks away from him in a bar, arms set against the Formica countertop, staring resolutely down into a half-empty glass of some lovely amber-colored liquid. Despite the heat and press of so many bodies around them, he’s wearing a jacket, and jeans, and an olive-green shirt that stretches over the soft swell of his stomach, and Sam clenches his hand a little tighter against his beer bottle and walks over.

“Hey,” he says, when he’s close enough to be heard over the loud sounds of conversation around them. 

Lucifer glances up. There’s something about him, a quiet sort of intensity that draws Sam in instinctively. Blots everyone else around them out of the picture. “Hello,” he says, fingers nudging against his glass. His voice is surprising, quiet, but even so Sam finds it resonates inside him. 

“I’m Sam,” he says, when it becomes clear that his companion isn’t going to say anything else. 

“My name’s Lucifer,” says Lucifer.

Sam blinks. “Uh,” he says. “Sorry?”

Lucifer makes a soft sound of amusement at the back of his throat, lifts his cup to his lips, and drains it empty. It’s clear from the expression in his eyes that he’s pretty used to this sort of reaction when he goes through introductions.

“Lucifer,” he repeats. “Morningstar.” He extends a hand, eyebrows raised, and Sam takes it, biting his lower lip. Regardless of the unexpected name, Lucifer’s pretty much the most attractive man he’s seen all night. Or in a long time. That intensity radiates off him; if Sam believed in things like psychics or witchcraft, he might have said Lucifer had an aura. As it is, he stands there and shakes his hand for a few seconds longer than is societally normal, then drags a barstool out and slings his legs over its sides, giving it a purpose for the night.

“It’s nice to meet you, Lucifer,” Sam says, trying the name out on his tongue. It sounds oddly comfortable there, like it belongs in his mouth. 

His eyes flicker with something akin to warmth, crinkle a little at the corners. “You too, Sam,” he murmurs, nudging absently at his glass with his fingers again.

“So what brings you into this shithole of a bar?” Sam asks conversationally, tilting his beer bottle back against his lips. “You at Stanford?” The bar itself isn’t part of Stanford’s campus, but it’s close enough so that the vast majority of students like to head there for the weekends, and it’s convenient for Sam, who still lives in his student-housing funded apartment, having only just graduated two weeks ago. 

Lucifer shakes his head, though. “I’m here because of my job,” he says.

“Which is what, guarding over the Gates of Hell?” Sam laughs, and Lucifer does too, after a few seconds, a slow, languid sound. It reminds Sam vaguely of rain, though not so much in its quality as in the laziness of it, the calming effect it seems to being having on Sam in general.

“Not exactly.” A pause while Lucifer gets another drink and curves his mouth around the edge of his new glass, lips pressing marks into the sides. “I’m a professional murderer.”

Whatever he sees in Sam’s expression then causes him to laugh, harder than before, hand on the bar. Sam joins in after a few seconds, though he’s honestly not sure if Lucifer was maybe telling the truth. 

Even then, he’s honestly not sure if he’d care.

*

**_April 2013_ **

“Sam… _Sam_ …”

Some insistent voice is poking at Sam’s brain, trying to wake it up. He groans, squeezes his eyes shut a little tighter, and mutters, “Fuck off, Dean, m’trying to sleep.”

There’s a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Winchester,” another voice says.

Sam’s brain clicks and whirrs out of hibernation and into the slow-moving area between sleep and wakefulness. It tries a few times to buffer, fails, and says _system error, please reboot._

Someone else’s hand on his forehead, and Sam flinches, gritting his teeth. There’s a dull ache at the back of his mind, hovering just out of reach, and he tries to concentrate both on keeping the ache away and trying to identify the voice, and finds that he can’t do both. 

“Winchester, open your damn eyes.” The hand on his shoulder shakes him a few times, and Sam shifts, moves his lips a few times, and comes into complete working mode suddenly, the ache at the back of his head catching up to him at the same time as everything else. Prison. He’s in prison, and he just passed out in what may very well be the superintendent’s office, and—

Jesus _Christ,_ his head hurts.

“Ah, Sam,” says Voice #1, which Sam can now recognize as belonging to Metatron. “So glad to see you’re awake.” He glances over at the guard accompanying him, a bald man with a face like a potato, and adds, “Uriel happened to be walking by as you fell; came in to see what all the ruckus was about. He’s the head of security in the cell block where Lucifer is staying.”

Sam startles at Lucifer’s name. He’d mostly forgotten that Lucifer’s in jail here, that he’s the whole reason why Sam even passed out in the first place. “Oh,” he says, and looks at Uriel. His mouth is twisted in what could be a smirk, condescension and something close to arrogance leaking out of every pore in his body. 

“You worked with him at one time,” Uriel says. A statement, not a question. 

Sam nods slowly. Uriel’s smirk widens infinitesimally. An ugly curved gash in the potato. 

Before Uriel can ask another question, though, Metatron intervenes with: “I just asked Mr. Winchester a few questions, Uriel; I had informed him that he would be allowed to go back to his cell after I was through. This is his first day here, after all.” He raises an eyebrow at Uriel, and the potato falls back into its natural, lumpy state. 

“All right,” he mutters, and then glances down at Sam, a flash of disgust in his eyes. “If he can get off the ground, that is.”

Sam struggles to his feet, fully aware of four sets of eyes on him. He straightens his uniform—ugly as sin, even after he hit his head—and stumbles out of the office, back down the hall, and into his cell. Andy is sitting up on his bed, still reading _Of Mice and Men,_ although he spares Sam a cursory glance as he enters and “How’d it go?” he asks, flipping a page.

Sam waits until the guard who accompanied him has shut the door before he sinks down onto his own mattress, groaning softly and putting his head in his hands. Andy glances up then, looking alarmed.

“What,” he says. “What’s wrong?”

Sam doesn’t know how to answer that question; wouldn’t know where to start. So he clears his throat, asks one of his own:

“Do you know a guy in here named Lucifer?”

Andy’s eyes widen just a little. “Morningstar? Yeah, everyone knows him. Why?”

Sam laughs, a quiet, broken sound, humorless and soft. _Everyone knows him._ Of course they do. He feels something go tense inside his chest, and shakes his head, stretching out on his bunk and turning to face the wall. 

“Forget it,” he says over his shoulder. “I think I’m gonna take a rest. Conteur’s kind of exhausting to talk to.”

Andy snorts. “Yeah, that he is. That he is.”

But Sam, despite his throbbing headache and his stinging eyelids, just lies still for hours, staring blankly ahead of him. 

Five _fucking_ years.


End file.
